Biography
Biography: Shalini Adiga
Abstract
Steven Johnson Syndrome (SJS) is a life threatening muco-cutaneous adverse reaction to medications with high mortality. The aim of this study was to retrospectively review the relationship between drugs induced SJS, the causative agents and the patient characteristics. In patients reported with SJS over a period of 2yrs at a tertiary hospital, data were collected for demographic information, causative drugs, time interval between drug intake and onset of symptoms, duration of hospital stayand clinical outcome. Causality assessment was carried out using the WHO probability scale and data was analysed using SPSS software (version 20).The study included 47 cases of which 29 comprised females. Of the total cases 10 patients were less than 20yrs and 4 patients more than 60 yrs of age with a median age of 40 yrs. Antimicrobials (32%), anti-epileptics (32%) and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (17%) were the most commonly associated drugs. Amongst antimicrobials fluroquinolones were the most frequent causative drugs followed by cephalosporins and antiretroviral agents. Phenytoin was the commonly implicated antiepileptic drug.The onset of reaction was seen to be most rapid with antibiotics and NSAIDs, with median onset to reaction time being 3 and 4.5 days respectively. Anti-epileptics had the longest latency of 21 days to onset of reaction. Patients developing SJS following antibiotic use had the longest duration of hospital stay, while patients who had no history of drug intake had the least duration (median of 12 days v/s 2.5 days) according to the WHO causality assessment all cases had ‘probable’ association with prior drug intake.